My Utmost for His Highest - October 20 - Is God's Will My Will?

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. - I Thessalonians 4:3

It is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me; is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me all that has been made possible by the Atonement? Am I willing to let Jesus be made sanctification to me, and to let the life of Jesus be manifested in my mortal flesh? Beware of saying--Oh, I am longing to be sanctified. You are not, stop longing and make it a matter of transaction,--"Nothing in my hands I bring." Receive Jesus Christ to be made sanctification to you in implicit faith, and the great marvel of the Atonement of Jesus will be made real in you. All that Jesus made possible is made mine by the free loving gift of God on the ground of what He performed, my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness), a holiness based on agonizing repentance and a sense of unspeakable shame and degradation; and also on the amazing realization that the love of God commended itself to me in that while I cared nothing about Him, He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification (Romans 5:8 - But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us). No wonder Paul says nothing is "able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39)." 

Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is done only through the superb Atonement of Christ. Never put the effect as the cause. The effect in me is obedience and service and prayer, and is the outcome of speechless thanks and adoration for the marvelous sanctification wrought out in me because of the Atonement. 

My Utmost for His Highest - October 19 - The Unheeded Secret

My kingdom is not of this world - John 18:36

The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21)," a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives in the shop window. It is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of the life. 

We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. In Our Lord's life there was none of the press and rush of tremendous activity that we regard so highly, and the disciple is to be as His Master. The central thing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself not public usefulness to men.

It is not its practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College, its whole strength lies in the fact that here you are put into soak before God. You have no idea of where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you either at home or abroad and if you waste your time in over-active energies instead of getting into soak on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true in Him whatever happens. 

My Utmost for His Highest - October 18 - The Key to Missionary Devotion

Because that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. - 3 John 7

Our Lord has told us how love to Him is to manifest itself. "Lovest thou Me" "Feed My Sheep (John 21:17)"--identify yourself with My interests in other people, not identify Me with your interests in other people. I Corinthians 13:4-8 gives the character of this love, it is the love of God expressing itself. The test of my love for Jesus is the practical one, all the rest is sentimental jargon. 

Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of Redemption wrought in me by the Holy Ghost Who sheds abroad the love of God in my heart, and that love works efficaciously through me in contact with everyone I meet. I remain loyal to His Name although every common-sense fact gives the lie to Him, and declares that He has no more power than a morning mist. 

The key to missionary devotion means being attached to nothing and no one saving Our Lord Himself, not being detached from things externally. Our Lord was amazingly in and out among ordinary things; His detachment was on the inside towards God. External detachment is often an indication of a secret vital attachment to the things we keep away from externally. 

The loyalty of a missionary is to keep his soul concentratedly open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women Our Lord sends out on His enterprises are the ordinary human stuff, plus dominating devotion to Himself wrought by the Holy Ghost. 

My Thoughts

Efficacious - producing the desired effect

My Utmost for His Highest - October 17 - Greater Works

"and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." - John 14:12

Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer is the greater work. We think of prayer as a common-sense exercise of our higher powers in order to prepare us for God's work. In the teaching of Jesus Christ prayer is the working of the miracle of Redemption in me which produces the miracle of Redemption in others by the power of God. The way fruit remains is by prayer, but remember it is prayer based on the agony of Redemption, not on my agony. Only a child gets prayer answered; a wise man does not. 

Prayer is the battle; it is a matter of indifference where you are. Whichever way God engineers circumstances, the duty is to pray. Never allow the thought--"I am of no use where I am;" because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. Wherever God has dumped you down in circumstances pray, ejaculate to Him all the time. "Whatsoever ye ask in My name, that will I do (John 14:13)." We won't pray unless we get thrills, that is the intensest form of spiritual selfishness. We have to labor along the line of God's direction, and He says pray. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest (Matthew 9:38)." 

There is nothing thrilling about a laboring man's work, but it is the laboring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the laboring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible. You labor at prayer and results happen all the time from His standpoint. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ. 

My Utmost for His Highest - October 16 - The Key to the Master's Orders

"Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." - Matthew 9:38

The key to the missionary problem is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer not work, that is, not work as the word is popularly understood today because that may mean the evasion of concentration on God. The key to the missionary problem is not the key of common sense, nor the medical key, nor the key of civilization or education or even evangelization. The key is prayer. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest." Naturally, prayer is not practical, it is absurd; we have to realize that prayer is stupid from the ordinary common-sense point of view.
There are no nations in Jesus Christ's outlook, but the world. How many of us pray without respect of persons, and with respect to only one Person, Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced by distress and conviction of sin, and this is the harvest we have to pray that laborers may be thrust out to reap. We are taken up with active work while people all around are ripe to harvest, and we do not reap one of them, but waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities. Suppose the crisis comes in your father's life, in your brother's life, are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? “Oh, but I have a special work to do!” No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ’s own, one who is not above his Master (John 13:16), one who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls to no special work: He calls to Himself. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,” and He will engineer circumstances and thrust you out.

My Utmost for His Highest - October 15 - The Key to the Missionary Message

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. I John 2:2

The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ’s work--the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!”— that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is one who is soaked in that revelation.

The real key to the missionary’s message is the “remissionary” aspect of Christ’s life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. “…repentance and remission of sins should be preached…to all nations…” (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins….” The missionary’s message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is “for the whole world.” When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.

A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim “the Lamb of God.” It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, “Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me,” but, “…woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel— “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

-- Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

My Thoughts

Propitiation means that Jesus Christ atones or returned man to a right standing with God. By man sinning, he was sent out from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23). Jesus brought us back. He averted God's wrath from man by God Himself presenting Himself (in Jesus Christ) as that which will turn away His righteous wrath against our sin. In Greek mythology, propitiation has the idea of present a gift to the gods, so as to turn away the displeasure of the gods. 

I John 4:19 - Is Grace Resistible?

I John 4:19
We love, because He first loved us.

Message: Is Grace Resistible?

Time: The author of this epistle never identified himself by name, but Christians since the beginning of the church have considered this letter authoritative, believing it was written by John the apostle. A date of about AD 90, with John writing from his exile on Patmos, ends up being the best proposition. John focused on three issues: the zeal of the believers, standing firm against false teachers, and reassuring the Christians that they have eternal life.

What the Lord is Saying:

Is Grace Resistable? Is it possible to resist God's grace?

The western church condemned Pelagius and his teaching at the Second Council of Orange in AD 529. Also struck down was semi-Pelagianism. Augustine, Pelagius and the French monk John Cassian lived during the late 4th and early 5th centuries. John Cassian and semi-Pelagianism steers a middle ground between Augustine's view of grace alone and Pelagius view of works. This view affirms grace as a need for salvation, yet still denies original sin and the depravity of man. Thus, grace is necessary but humans take the first step toward God. People need grace to be saved, but this grace does not take the initiative in salvation. Augustine meanwhile says that no sinner can seek God of their own accord. The only people who seek Him are those who He first sovereignly and effectually are drawn by His sovereign grace.

Thus, the dividing line is whether there is synergy in divine grace - God and human beings working together toward regeneration. But John Calvin and Augustinians say that divine grace is monergistic in regeneration where only God brings about the new birth of believers. We love, because He (God) first loved us. God guarantees that His elect will love Him. He will overcome their resistance to Him.

Promise: If God reveals his love to man then they can't reject him. There is glorious love and beauty of our Creator.

Prayer: Thank you for loving me God. Thank you for calling me to be with You, to be Yours for all time.

Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines celebrating the 500th year of the Reformation. The month of April is about salvation by grace alone. March was about the sovereign providence of God; February was about the doctrine of revelation and the various aspects of the doctrine of Scripture that sola Scriptura seeks to preserve; January is about the doctrine of God.